Whether it’s through online flyers, Youtube commercials, or videos on social media, it’s apparent that businesses are relying on online marketing more than ever to promote their products. Most marketers use the terms “inbound” and “outbound” to describe the difference between their internet marketing and more traditional marketing. While it sounds like some vague category of marketing or some odd slang used in the industry, it’s important to know how each approach’s process works if you work for a business or are thinking of starting one in today’s day in age.
Knowing the Difference
If you’re eager to gain more attention to your business’s online presence, you’ll have to invest in some type of marketing campaign to promote the brand. You could go with “outbound marketing”, which represents more traditional advertising methods including print ads, telemarketing, direct mail, and commercials on TV and radio. The idea behind it is to spread a brand’s message to the mass public with hope that there will be enough members of your target audience who will respond. Several decades ago, these were the main tactics that brought profit to a business, but with thousands of brands doing the same thing in our time, most people no longer pay attention to them. The cost of this method is also more expensive, as it’s interruptive to people’s daily activities and not specifically catered to who a business believes will buy their product. It’s basically one-way communication and it’s hard for people to interact with.
“Inbound marketing” refers to pulling audiences in and increasing brand exposure by using valuable content online like blog posts, social media, websites, and paid ads optimized for certain search engine keywords. Drawing in a customer with good content means they will deliberately seek out your brand to find out more information (as opposed to traditional marketing that “interrupts” the customer… for example, pop-up ads are a good representation of “interruptive” marketing.) Internet marketing values honesty and transparency and encourages two-way communication as people can talk back via social media and truly engage with the brand. It’s extremely critical for business to be up front about their services and products, as responses shows brand authority and responsibility even when customer’s comments may be negative. Media like blogs or social channels like Facebook let customers feel more connected to a brand.
Making the Switch
Switching to using inbound marketing isn’t complicated, as the elements that make up the process are easy to practice and implement. The first is using search engine optimization, which helps your website climb the ranks of results of search engines so it gains more traffic from keyword searches. Creating high quality landing pages, blog posts form experts, and on-site videos and e-books are also a great way to gain attraction from customers as well as long as it helps to solve their problem or gives them valuable information. Through high-quality content you can then insert “calls for action”, what marketers refer to as a download in exchange for an email address or other contact information, or making a purchase that includes a temporary discount offer. Using social media and emails round out the inbound approach as it nurtures an ongoing relationship with your customers that they can react to, share, and comment on through their digital profiles.
Integrated Marketing
It’s ultimately up to each business with how they want their marketing campaigns to work, but don’t hesitate if you feel that using a mix of both inbound and outbound approaches could work. Studies show that using traditional marketing techniques still help elevate online campaigns as it still builds brand awareness as long it’s done right. To get more information on making that happen, check out what Addiction-Rep has to say about leveraging both in your favor. Give your business the TLC it needs and start educating yourself on adapting with what’s changing in the industry, you won’t regret it!
